The__Phoenix

First,I work as freelance for different pages from europe (I donīt write in english and my english writing is not perfect as you will see). For this reason(my work not my english ),I have contact and conversations with people that have a good knowledge of games business.Iīm going to write here some of the rumours that I heard in the past few weeks.This is just what I know,I donīt care if you believe me or not, Iīm just giving you the info that I know .So,If the mods consider that I must edit this thread, I will do.

Also, I invest in stocks that I know very well,and take two is one of my favourites.I will tell you what I think TTWO will do in the next weeks.This is what I heard,you should take it as rumours.Ok,Said this;

This are a paraphrases of the conversations that I had with a journalist who was at e3.

-A Few weeks after e3(2-3 weeks ago),I spoke with a european journalist who told me this;There is at least three big magazines(GI,OXM and PSM) that have ready a preview of the game .(for this reason I felt dissapointed with the last gameinformer cover).

-Hours before sony conference at e3 ran a strong rumor in LA" something related with gta in the sony conference"One day later,in one of the corridors, my "mole", had a informal conversation with the boss of Sony in an european country.They spoke about a lot of things,but the interesting part is this;-What about gta V? Everybody thought that you had the game?- (laughs)why? who tell you that?(laugh)-So,was a fake rumour?-who knows?but the game looks amazing.-Did you see gtav ?-yeah,of course I saw the game.-gta v!!?-( laughs)yes,I saw the masterpiece that R* is preparing for us.....mp3 dlcīs(more laughs).I canīt speak. Iīm sorry.

-I wasted much time asking about gta v to the two people that I consider could know the release date(Iīm speaking about people who I have access if Iīm persuasive ,people that know everybody and everybody know them. of course I canīt speak with nobody in R*).Of course,they didnīt tell me a date,but both said ;" If I have to bet I would say sooner rather than later ","are you sure?" I said,"yes,pretty sure."This looks not conclusive at all(because itīs not conclusive),but people who Iīm speaking, knows really well how R* works......

TTWO PLANS;I invest in stocks,but first I need to be sure that I know very well how these companies work. This is what I know about TTWO and because I think that the announce of the release date will be in this month.

Why R* will give the release date or new info this month?There is two assumptions that you need to consider.If we want predict when we will have new info,we need take a look at ;-the circumstancial situation that take two/R* live right now.-the behaviour of R* in the past

Why take two/R* makes games? One word,MONEY.They have two ways to win this money ;-.Sell games- Reaching the maximum profit with his stocks.So this is what R* should do if we want to reach the maximum possible benefit;and this is that R* will do. 1;Info in this month. 2;gta v in october.

Why?

1; R* always updated the release date of the games that will be launched in a lapse of 6-12 months,before or in third quarter earnings(august 7 this year). This happened with RDR and LA noire and will happen with gta V.http://www.computera...ayed-into-2011/

What could happen if R* donīt says nothing before august 7?They could lose the confident of the investors and right now,after lost a 41% from march 19 until now itīs not the best idea.http://www.gtaforums...entry1061428718

3; The games sales plummet ,and the first months of 2013 could be a disaster for the industry .Oct/november are the best months to launch a game. october is the smart move . Launch the game in march,april or may 2013 is just stupid.

OCTOBER 2011;October was the best non-holiday month the US video game market has had in a long time, with an impressive 10 games selling over 200,000 units on a multiplatform basis in four weeks. On a single platform basis, 18 games sold over 100,000 units.http://www.vgchartz....r-october-2011/

EARLY 2012;In each of 2008, 2009, and 2010 the 50 million unit software point was crossed sometime in March. That is, software sold more briskly.But in 2011, it fell back into early April, indicating a significant slowdown. This year, unit sales just crossed 51 million units at the very end of May. http://www.gamasutra..._turnaround.php

4;No way they are going to launch gta v between january and march 2013.Why?If we consider that in terms of bussines TTWO and R* are the same corporation then no makes sense launch two AAA in a interval of 1 month.

Zelnick believes it can help(bioshock 2) drive profitability in the absence of a 1,000-pound gorilla Grand Theft Auto release.Publisher says the game can help drive profitability in a non Grand Theft Auto year.That would make the difference for us. If you have four or five titles that are significantly successful, that will meaningfully change our profitability."We are investing heavily in making it bigger and better, We want it to be different enough that people will want to own it. BioShock got a lot of attention. Its brand is huge. It won lots of awards. But it wasnt as huge a seller. Im hopeful that BioShock 2 will benefit from the brand awarenesshttp://www.edge-onli...ioshock-2-sales

5;Forget the f*cking MP3.Gta v strategy is not relationated(totally) with MP3. RDR was released on april 18 2010 and by the first days of july R* raised the seizure over the previews and offered pictures of LA noire. We read previews of LA noire 15 days after RDR was launched , so itīs just stupid think that we need to wait until the last mp3 dlc will be launched.

6;If we assume that gta V will be released in the FY13,then all the hints point to october,right? OK, but there is a problem because you say Rocktober, but we are in july and we donīt know a sh*t, why?

Because The dissipation of the hype."We're not going to announce it, we're not going to announce when we are going to announce it, and we are not going to announce a strategy about announcing it or about when we are going to announce it either, or about the announcement strategy surrounding the announcement of the strategy."Zelnick,TTWO ceo.The usual with a gta game are 6 months of marketing starting with a preview in gameinformer. Itīs the best strategy?We have two big examples;1;MP3; Tons of pictures,trailers,articles in the newswire...and what? He failed miserably in sales.2;Nintendo and apple; Wii release date was announced on september 16,2006 and launched two months after. And what? Wii was the winner of this consoles generation and the less powerful console.And apple.....you know already,itīs the same strategy and they have a incomparable succes.

The investors know the reduced fiability of R* when they announce a release date,so if they say that gta v is ready to be launched in 6 months no one is going to believe you,in this case the investors could prefer invest when the info is recent and sell a few weeks later,then the profit is reduced.But if you announce a release date in 3 months away from now the people are going to buy your stocks and not sell them until weeks or months the game was released.

MosquitoSmasher

I read the whole thing and i must say i congratulate you, cause it was a enjoyable and good read too. It makes alot of sense, and i wish i could share your optimism, but this uncertainty sucks and i'm not gonna get my hopes up. The only reason is that i want to prevent some serious dissappointment. Especially the thing about the release date makes alot of sense, but we have no idea if Take Two thinks that way as well. We are going to have to wait and see.

Info this month? Time will tell...nobody knows and can't know for sure.

The part about the Sony guy was really interesting too, i'm sure they are creating a masterpiece.

Gears of Skorge

Seriously, some official info had better be announced before the end of August! I just hope all the rumours are true, and it will be announced at Games-con (15/08/12), failing that, it just has to be before August's end, It just has to......Right?

mntns86

I'm sure you could understand why I would be skeptical at first but after reading a bit of your post I actually think this could be legit. Just seems like you put a lot of thought/effort into this.

I couldn't understand everything you said due to your english but I don't think I disagree with anything. I actually think it makes sense. It fits in with my current theory that R* will announce new info/trailer at the end of the month with the actual info/trailer coming early August. It gives them time to focus on the first MP3 DLC. You made a point that wouldn't need to wait until all the DLC is out. They could easily market V and promote MP3 DLC at the same time! Also, I agree with the 3 month marketing. They could release a trailer each month (august/september/october) and release the game in the second half of October. I think after all this silence if they hit out with intense marketing over 3 months that it would be the perfect balance of getting hype through the roof and giving people enough notice so that they can put money aside to purchase the game.

Andreas

Seriously, some official info had better be announced before the end of August! I just hope all the rumours are true, and it will be announced at Games-con (15/08/12), failing that, it just has to be before August's end, It just has to......Right?

Rockstar is not ready to release a game right now. They only work on GTA V and maybe Agent right now but GTA V is their main focus after Max Payne 3. So they have to announce new GTA info if they want to make their shares at least stable. My guess is if there are no new info in the end of this month then their shares will be less than $9 worth. And that is very poor. They'll lose a lot of their investors so they've to counter with new GTA V infos. Otherwise they're very stupid. Too bad that Rockstar don't have a marketing head anymore. I hope that this won't damage Rockstar. They need a new marketing head.

MosquitoSmasher

I'm sure you could understand why I would be skeptical at first but after reading a bit of your post I actually think this could be legit. Just seems like you put a lot of thought/effort into this.

I couldn't understand everything you said due to your english but I don't think I disagree with anything. I actually think it makes sense. It fits in with my current theory that R* will announce new info/trailer at the end of the month with the actual info/trailer coming early August. It gives them time to focus on the first MP3 DLC. You made a point that wouldn't need to wait until all the DLC is out. They could easily market V and promote MP3 DLC at the same time! Also, I agree with the 3 month marketing. They could release a trailer each month (august/september/october) and release the game in the second half of October. I think after all this silence if they hit out with intense marketing over 3 months that it would be the perfect balance of getting hype through the roof and giving people enough notice so that they can put money aside to purchase the game.

I guess we just need to wait and see what happens later this month...

Yeah, that's the thing, it really all makes sense. I don't know who came up with that thought that they couldn't market MP3 DLC and GTA V at the same time, and thus that we had to wait till the very last MP3 DLC, but that really makes no sense at all. The part about RDR and LA Noire shows that it can be done, no problem. I can't say much else other than that i really hope all this becomes true and that somewhere this month this forum will be in celebration mode, nothing but happy faces and people excited for a new trailer or actually the release date.

The__Phoenix

Unfortunately I still doubt that Rockstar will announce the release date of Grand Theft Auto V in this month, maybe in August but I'm almost sure that it won't happen in July.

I am happy you liked it guys. I will try to make a few more like this. About the release date and the info, I really can see how the people is moving already. I can smell the smoke,I am sure that we will see the fire soon.

mntns86

I'm sure you could understand why I would be skeptical at first but after reading a bit of your post I actually think this could be legit. Just seems like you put a lot of thought/effort into this.

I couldn't understand everything you said due to your english but I don't think I disagree with anything. I actually think it makes sense. It fits in with my current theory that R* will announce new info/trailer at the end of the month with the actual info/trailer coming early August. It gives them time to focus on the first MP3 DLC. You made a point that wouldn't need to wait until all the DLC is out. They could easily market V and promote MP3 DLC at the same time! Also, I agree with the 3 month marketing. They could release a trailer each month (august/september/october) and release the game in the second half of October. I think after all this silence if they hit out with intense marketing over 3 months that it would be the perfect balance of getting hype through the roof and giving people enough notice so that they can put money aside to purchase the game.

I guess we just need to wait and see what happens later this month...

Yeah, that's the thing, it really all makes sense. I don't know who came up with that thought that they couldn't market MP3 DLC and GTA V at the same time, and thus that we had to wait till the very last MP3 DLC, but that really makes no sense at all. The part about RDR and LA Noire shows that it can be done, no problem. I can't say much else other than that i really hope all this becomes true and that somewhere this month this forum will be in celebration mode, nothing but happy faces and people excited for a new trailer or actually the release date.

That's what makes me doubt the theory...that it makes sense. Rockstar are all about being secretive and surprising people. If it seems so obvious then it might not happen because when have they done the obvious thing? People thought info was coming 24/05, at E3, in GameInformer and nothing happened.

I don't know where people got the idea from either. It has always sounded stupid to me. DLC is different from a full game. They can easily promote both at the same time.

I really hope that we get info this month so we can put an end to this silence! It's not really the wait that bothers me it's just the lack of any information! If they just announced a release date then I'd be happy to wait even if it was another year away!

If we don't get anything this month or August (at a push!) then I think the game will definitely be a 2013 release with info coming somewhere between September/December assuming TT still expect $2 per share/60% from R* and $1.8b in Q4 FY2013. I believe that we will get an update from TT during August which will tell us if they still expect $2 per share in Q4 FY2013 or not. If no new info comes by August then at least we'll have that to get some idea of what's going on!

Capricornus

As for the topic at hand, those points are excellent mate, however, I still do not see any announcements coming this month. I would predict more like August 2nd, but its only a prediction, and more than likely, a wrong one.